Critics point finger at satirical website

Encyclopedia Dramatica is Wikipedia's bastard child, a compendium of internet trends and culture which lampoons every subject it touches.

A favourite haunt of Anonymous, the internet group that declared war on Scientology, its contributors are irreverent, obtuse and thrive on ignoring political correctness.

"Encyclopedia dramatica's purpose is to provide a central catalog for the e-public to view parody and satirie (sic) of drama, memes, e-pals and other interesting happenings on the internets," a page explaining the site says.

"The goal is to provide comprehensive, reference-style parody, to poke fun at everyone and everything on the internet."

For example, take the entry on its older, more serious cousin: "Wikipedia is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) in which participants play editors of a hypothetical online encyclopedia "¦ a fairly obvious rip-off from Encyclopedia Dramatica."

But Dramatica's sense of humour is often cruder than this, which makes it a favourite target for critics, who accuse Anonymous of propagating hate.

For instance, the opening to its article on Australia's indigenous people reads: "Aboriginals are the niggers of Australia". This is one of the less offensive lines - it's crude stuff.

Adherents say you shouldn't take anything said on Dramatica seriously. Many of these pages are set up with the express purpose of provoking people, a hobby known as "trolling".

"Anonymous has a varied sense of humour that most people probably wouldn't get," Sydney-based Anon Guy Fawkes says.

"You get trolled when you start taking things seriously. Trolls like to rile people up for their own amusement and they're very good at doing it.

"More often than not if you're crying you've been trolled. People are going to hate you and people are going to like you, and if they like you, well, you're lucky."